Bob Dyce Returns to Ottawa as Hamilton Faces the Redblacks He Once Coached

The Week 18 matchup kicks off at 7 p.m. ET, broadcast on the TSN Network, TSN.ca and the TSN App.

Four seasons, then a firing

Dyce, 60, spent four seasons with the Redblacks organization, the last three as head coach. He was fired at the conclusion of the 2025 season with an 18-39-1 record.

A quick landing in Hamilton

Hamilton didn't waste much time bringing Dyce in. He was hired as the Tiger-Cats' special teams coordinator and assistant head coach, and Hamilton head coach Scott Milanovich didn't hold back on the move, calling it a "slam-dunk" hire. For a coaching staff trying to turn around a rough season, landing someone with Dyce's CFL experience, even with a losing record attached, was treated as a clear win.

Two teams trying to find a way out of a slump

The circumstances around tonight's game make Dyce's return even stranger. Ottawa enters having tied the CFL record for the worst start to a season in league history, matching the 1994 Shreveport Pirates at 14 straight losses. Hamilton isn't exactly thriving either: the Tiger-Cats arrive on a five-game losing streak, having dropped eight of their last nine. Whoever wins tonight will be snapping a skid of their own.

Ottawa's lineup will again be led by quarterback McLeod Bethel-Thompson under centre, while Hamilton goes with Harrison Frost, who will be making his fourth appearance as the Tiger-Cats' starter.

What led here

Dyce's firing capped a stretch that ottown has been tracking closely. Ottawa's winless streak hit 20 games after ottown's earlier report on a 45-31 loss to Calgary in late September, with Bethel-Thompson throwing for 418 yards in that game. Before that, Ottawa tied the league's worst-start record outright with a heartbreaking 40-38 loss on a 62-yard field goal, as covered in ottown's earlier report. Dyce was gone by the time most of that losing streak piled up, but the roster and the record he left behind are the same ones Ottawa is still carrying into tonight.

Why it matters for Ottawa

For Redblacks fans, tonight is less about the standings and more about watching a coach who couldn't turn things around in Ottawa try to help engineer a win against the team he used to lead. A Redblacks win, on the other hand, would be one more data point in the ongoing search for anything to build on before the season runs out.

Sources: TSN, TSN